Museum Fatigue

Thursday was Museum Day. We were originally going to go to Musee D'Orsay on Tuesday, but for some reason, the queue was out of control and raining, so we opted not to. So instead we did the Lourve and Musee D'Orsay all in one day.

First, the Lourve. We got the little audioguide thing and walked around, but the museum's just so freakin' huge and Shelly's so goddamn slow in the museums. So after lunch, I ditched Shelly to go at her snailspeed around the Lourve and got the headset for the Da Vinci Code tour. IT WAS GREAT! I can't say enough how great it was. The tour is hilarious. There's this guy with a French accent narrating the thing and he tells you exactly where to go and what to do. And there's music and quotes from the movie. And the narrator will say stuff like "Go to the window. Look, there goes Sophie and Langdon out the window! How did they survive that fall? I don't know." The tour is just awesome. I highly recommend. It includes a lot of the major Italian artwork and it's just a way to make the museum experience fun.


Museums with Shelly make me want to jump out the window!!!


The famous Mona Lisa. The voice in my head (on the headset) told me to push through the crowd...so I did.


Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo Da Vinci. I SWEAR there's a cross above his hand like it says in the book. Can you see it?


Me doing the V thing from the Da Vinci Code.


I SOLVED THE DA VINCI CODE! Me at the Rose Stone from the book/movie. This is where the Holy Grail is.

The tour was so fun!

Then we went to Musee D'Orsay where unfortunately, they didn't have a Da Vinci Code tour, but it's a much smaller museum and caters specifically to impressionist paintings. They had a gorgeous collection. I never saw so many Monets, Degas, Van Goghs, Pissaros, Manets, Renoirs, etc. My eyes hurt after.

Then Friday, our last day, we went up to Montmarte to the Sacre-Coeur, another cathedral. The view from this place is amazing.


Sacre-Couer


Shelly at the Sacre-Couer.

Then we went over to Place du Tertre. This is where Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc. all lived and painted. They used to come to this park and meet at cafes when they were alive and poor struggling artists. How cool is that? So much of the artwork we saw in the museums just the day before were inspired and/or painted here!


Shelly bought a small painting from this artist.


Then we got our portraits drawn by this man.


The artist and his muses.

Then we ventured down the road to Pigalle, a seedy sexshop ridden street in Paris, also where the Moulin Rouge is. It is also called "Pig Alley" because the American G.I.s during WWII called it that.


The Moulin Rouge.


SEX! SEX! SEX!

Then, we went to the Museum of Erotic Art, which was interesting... There's a toliet cam exhibit that is really disturbing. The funniest part is that's where the real bathrooms are as well.


These are erotic drawings by Edgar Degas. Apparantly, he didn't just paint ballerinas...

Then back to London...but we'll always have Paris.